By Mark HeathAFTER spending last week bathing in the warm glow of an Indian summer, the region's sun-worshippers have been brought back down to earth with a bump.

By Mark Heath

AFTER spending last week bathing in the warm glow of an Indian summer, the region's sun-worshippers have been brought back down to earth with a bump.

For just after 4pm yesterday, the greying skies opened and torrential rain battered East Anglia's parched lands, creating small pools and mini-rivers within minutes.

East Anglian Daily Times weatherman, Ken Blowers, said the dramatic downpour signalled the end of what had been a memorable summer.

“Autumn begins today at 11.47am, that is when the sun crosses the equator, so it is officially the end of summer,” he added.

Mr Blowers said 0.55 inches of rain had fallen in just 40 minutes during yesterday's deluge - the most since July 27.

The rain also brought with it a temperature drop of 10C - from 21C (70F) to 10C (50F) in under an hour - which Mr Blowers described as “very rare”.

He added: “It's caused by a very active cold front which has moved down from the North-West across East Anglia.

“With the cold front comes torrential rain. But the rain might not be here for very long because there's a high pressure front coming in for the rest of the week, which will bring with it a brief period of bright dry weather before the weekend.

“The cool temperatures are going to stay though. We've had 23C (74F) for the past four days, but it will drop down now to around 18C (64F) - a very substantial drop and one which sees temperatures return to the seasonal averages.”

The rain also saw police issue warnings to drivers to take care as they returned home from work, with several reports of trees and power lines down coming in within an hour of the downpour.

Nick Akers, a spokesman for EDF Energy, which supplies electricity to East Anglia, said it had had about 14 high-voltage faults reported, each affecting about 1,000 homes.

He added: “We have had a busy afternoon caused by the weather, but we have got people either working on the faults or on the way to them.

“I've had a couple of reports that we've got some difficulties with people getting through to us, but I think the problem is that people are not holding on long enough.

“We are certainly looking into that, but we are answering calls and we have got full-staffing.”

mark.heath@eadt.co.uk